Attic Nights (16.3-16.7)

By what means Erasistratus, the physician, said that one could do for a time without eating, if food chanced to be lacking, and endure hunger; and his own words on that subject.

I OFTEN spent whole days in Rome with Favorinus. His delightful conversation held my mind enthralled, and I attended him wherever he went, as if actually taken prisoner by his eloquence; to such a degree did he constantly delight me with his most agreeable discourse. Once when he had gone to visit a sick man, and I had entered with him, having conversed for some time in Greek about the man's illness with the physicians who chanced to be there at the time, he said:

This ought not to seem surprising either, that although previously he was always

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eager for food, now after an enforced fast of three days all his former appetite is lost. For what Erasistratus has written is pretty nearly true,

said he,

that the empty and open fibres of the intestines, the hollowness of the belly within and the empty and yawning cavity of the stomach, cause hunger; but when these are either filled with food or are contracted and brought together by continued fasting, then, since the place into which the food is received is either filled or made smaller, the impulse to take food, or to crave it, is destroyed.

He declared that Erasistratus also said that the Scythians too, when it was necessary for them to endure protracted hunger, bound a very tight bandage around their bellies. That by such compression of the belly it was believed that hunger could be prevented.

These things and many others of the kind Favorinus said most entertainingly on that occasion; but later, when I chanced to be reading the first book of Erasistratus' Distinctions, I found in that book the very passage which 1 had heard Favorinus quote. [*] The words of Erasistratus on the subject are as follows:

I reasoned therefore that the ability to fast for a long time is caused by strong compression of the belly; for with those who voluntarily fast for a long time, at first hunger ensues, but later it passes away.

Then a little later:

And the Scythians also are accustomed, when on any occasion it is necessary to fast, to bind up the belly with broad belts, in the belief that the hunger thus troubles them less; and one may almost say too that when the stomach is full, men feel no hunger for the reason that there is no vacuity in it, and likewise when it is greatly compressed there is no vacuity.

In the same book Erasistratus declares that a kind of irresistibly violent hunger, which the Greeks call bou/limos, or

ox-hunger,

is much more apt to be felt on very cold days than when tile weather is calm and pleasant, and that the reasons why this disorder prevails especially at such times have not yet become clear to him. The words which he uses are these:

It is unknown and requires investigation, both in reference to the case in question and in that of others who suffer from 'ox-hunger,' why this symptom appears rather on cold days than in warm weather.

In what fashion and in what language the war-herald of the Roman people was accustomed to declare war upon those against whom the people had voted that war should be made; also in what words the oath relating to the prohibition and punishment of theft by the soldiers was couched; and how the soldiers that were enrolled were to appear at an appointed time and place, with some exceptional cases in which they might properly be freed from that oath.

CINCIUS writes in his third book On Military Science [*] that the war-herald of the Roman people, when he declared war on the enemy and hurled a spear into their territory, used the following words:

Whereas the Hermundulan people and the men of the Hermundulam people have made war against the Roman people and have transgressed against them, and whereas the Roman people has ordered war with the Hermundulan people and the men of the Hermundulans, therefore I and the Roman people declare and make war with the Hermundulan people and with the men of the Hermundulans.

Also in the fifth book of the same Cincius On

Military Science we read the following: [*] "When a levy was made in ancient times and soldiers were enrolled, the tribune of the soldiers compelled them to take an oath in the following words dictated by the magistrate: 'In the army of the consuls Gaius Laelius, son of Gaius, and Lucius Cornelius, son of Publius, and for ten miles around it, you will not with malice aforethought commit a theft, either alone or with others, of more than the value of a silver sesterce in any one day. And except for one spear, a spear shaft, wood, fruit, fodder, a bladder, a purse and a torch, if you find or carry off anything there which is not your own and is worth more than one silver sesterce, you will bring it to the consul Gaius Laelius, son of Gaius, or to the consul Lucius Cornelius, son of Publius, or to whomsoever either of them shall appoint, or you will make known within the next three days whatever you have found or wrongfully carried off, or you will restore it to him whom you suppose to be its rightful owner, as you wish to do what is right."

Moreover, when soldiers had been enrolled, a day was appointed on which they should appear and should answer to the consul's summons; then an oath was taken, binding them to appear, with the addition of the following exceptions: 'Unless there be any of the following excuses: a funeral in his family or purification from a dead body [*] (provided these were not appointed for that day in order that he might not appear on that day), a dangerous disease, [*] or an omen which could not be passed by without expiatory rites, or an anniversary sacrifice which could not

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be properly celebrated unless he himself were present on that day, violence or the attack of enemies, a stated and appointed day with a foreigners; [*] if anyone shall have any of these excuses, then on the day following that on which he is excused for these reasons he shall come and render service to the one who held the levy in that district, village or town.'

Also in the same book are these words: [*]

'When a soldier was absent on the appointed day and had not been excused, he was branded as a deserter.

Also in the sixth book we find this: [*]

The columns of cavalry were called the wings of the army, because they were placed around the legions on the right and on the left, as wings are on tile bodies of birds. In a legion there are sixty centuries, thirty maniples, and ten cohorts.

The meaning of vestibulum and the various derivations proposed for the word.

THERE are numerous words which we use commonly, without however clearly knowing what their proper and exact meaning is; but following an uncertain and vulgar tradition without investigating the matter, we seem to say what we mean rather than say it; an example is vestibulum or

vestibule,

a word frequently met in conversation, yet not wholly clear to all who readily make use of it. For I have observed that some men who are by no means without learning think that the vestibule is the front part of the house, which is commonly known as the atrium. Gaius Aelius Gallus, in the second book of his work On the Meaning of Words relating to the Civil Law, says [*] that the vestibule is not in the house itself, nor is it a part of the house, but is an open place before the door of the house, through which there is approach and access to the house from the street, while on the right and left the door is hemmed in by buildings extended to the street and the door itself is at a distance from the street, separated from it by this vacant space. Furthermore, it is often inquired what the derivation of this word is; but nearly everything that I have read on the subject has seemed awkward and absurd. But what I recall hearing from Sulpicius Apollinaris, a man of choice learning, is as follows:

The particle ve, like some others, is now intensive and now the reverse; for of vetis and vehenens, the former is made by intensifying the idea of age, with elision, [*] and the latter from the power and force of the mind. But vescus, which is formed from the particle ve and esca, assumes the force of both opposite meanings. For Lucretius [*] uses vescum salem, or ' devouring salt,' in one sense, indicating a strong propensity to eat, Lucilius [*] in the other sense, of fastidiousness in eating. [*] Those then in early times who made spacious houses left a vacant place before the entrance, midway between the door of the house and the street. There those who had come to pay their respects to the master of

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the house took their places before they were admitted, standing neither in the street nor within the house. Therefore from that standing in a large space, and as it were from a kind of 'standing place,' the name vestibule was given to the great places left, as I have said, before the doors of houses, in which those who had come to call stood, before they were admitted to the house. [*] But we shall have to bear in mind that this word was not always used literally by the early writers, but in various figurative senses, which however are so formed as not to differ widely from that proper meaning which we have mentioned, as for example in the sixth book of Vergil: [*]

Before the vestibule, e'en in Hell's very jaws,

Avenging Cares and Grief have made their beds.

For he does not call the front part of the infernal dwelling the 'vestibule,' although one might be misled into thinking it so called, but he designates two places outside the doors of Orcus, the ' vestibule' and the fauces, of which 'vestibule' is applied to the part as it were before the house itself and before the private rooms of Orcus, while fauces designates the narrow passage through which the vestibule was approached.

[*]

What the victims are which are called bidentes, and why they were so called; and the opinions of Publius Nigidius and Julius Hyginus on that subject.

ON my return from Greece I put in at Brundisium. There a dabbler in the Latin language, who had been called from Rome by the people of Brundisium, was offering himself generally to be tested. I also went to him for the sake of amusement, for my mind was weary and languid [*] from the tossing of the sea. He was reading in a barbarous and ignorant manner from the seventh book of Vergil, in which this verse occurs: [*]

An hundred woolly sheep (bidentes) he duly slew,

and he invited anyone to ask him anything whatever which one wished to learn. Then I, marvelling at the assurance of the ignorant fellow, said:

Will you tell us, master, why bidentes are so called?

Bidentes,

said he,

means sheep, and he called them 'woolly,' to show more clearly that they are sheep.

I replied:

We will see later whether only sheep are called bidentes, as you say, and whether Pomponius, the writer of Atellanae, [*] was in error in his Transalpine Gauls, when he wrote this: [*]

O Mars, if ever I return, I vow

To sacrifice to thee with two-toothed (bidenti) boar.

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But now I asked you whether you know the reason for this name.

And he, without a moment's hesitation, but with the greatest possible assurance, said:

Sheep are called bidentes, because they have only two teeth.

Where on earth, pray,

said I,

have you seen a sheep that by nature had only two teeth? For that is a portent and ought to be met with expiatory offerings.

Then he, greatly disturbed and angry with me, cried:

Ask rather such questions as ought to be put to a grammarian; for one inquires of shepherds about the teeth of sheep.

I laughed at the wit of the blockhead and left him.

Now Publius Nigidius, in the book which he wrote On Sacrificial Meats, says [*] that not sheep alone are called bidentes, but all victims that are two years old; yet he has not explained clearly why they are called bidentes. But I find written in some Notes on the Pontifical Law [*] what I had myself thought, that they were first called bidennes, that is biennes with the insertion of the letter d; then by long use in speech the word became changed and from bidennes was formed bidentes, because the latter seemed easier and less harsh to pronounce.

However, Julius Hyginus, who seems not to have been ignorant of pontifical law, in the fourth book of his work On Virgil, wrote [*] that those victims were called bidentes which were of such an age that they had two prominent teeth. I quote his own words:

The victim called bidens should have eight teeth, but of these two should be more prominent than the rest, to make it plain that they have passed from

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infancy to a less tender age.

Whether this opinion of Hyginus is true or not may be determined by observation without resort to argument. [*]

That Laberius formed many words freely and boldly, and that he even uses numerous words whose Latinity is often questioned.

LABERIUS, in the mimes which he wrote, coined words with the greatest possible freedom. For he said [*] mendicimonium for

beggary,

moechimonium, adulterio or adulteritas for

adultery,

depudicavit for

dishonoured,

and abluvium for diluvium, or

deluge

; in the farce which he entitled The Basket [*] he uses manuatus est for

he stole,

and in The Fuller [*] he calls a thief manuarius, [*] saying: Thief (manuari), you have lost your shame, and he makes many other innovations of the same kind. He also used obsolete and obscene words, such as are spoken only by the dregs of the people, as in the Spinners' Shop: [*]

Orcus, in truth, will bear you on his shoulders (catomum) [*] nude.

He uses [*] elutriare for

washing out

linen, and lavandaria, or

wash,

of those things which are sent to be washed. He says: [*]

Into the fulling business I am hurled (coicior), [*]

and [*]

O heater ( ), what's your haste? Would'st aught outstrip?

Also in the Ropemaker [*] he applies the term talabarriunculi to those whom the general public call talabarriones. [*] He writes in the Compitlia: [*]

My jaws I've tamed (malaxavi),

and in The Forgetful Man, [*]

This is that dolt (gurdus) who, when two months ago

From Africa I came, did meet me here,

As I did say.

Also in the farce entitled Natalicius he uses [*] cippus for a small column, obba for a cup, camella for a bowl, [*] pittacim for a flap [*] and capitium for a breast band; the last-named passage reads:

A breast-band (capitium) you put on, the tunic's flap (pittacium).

Further, in his Anna Peranna he uses [*] gubernius for pilot, and plans [*] for sycophant, and nanus for dwarf; but Marcus Cicero also wrote planus for sycophant in the speech which he delivered In Defence of Cluentius. [*] Moreover Laberius in the farce entitled The Saturnalia [*] calls a sausage bolulus and says homo levanna instead of levis or

slight.

In the Necyomantia too he uses the very vulgar expression cocio for what our forefathers called arillator or

haggler.

His words are these: [*]

Two wives? More trouble this, the haggler (cocio) says;

Six aediles he had seen. [*]

However, in the farce which he called Alexandrea, he used [*] the same Greek word which is in common use, but correctly and in good Latin form; for he put emplastrum in the neuter, not in the feminine gender, as those half-educated innovators of ours do. I quote the words of that farce:

What is an oath? A plaster (emplastrum) for a debt.